Basil Fernando, Executive Director, Asian Legal Resource Centre, Hong Kong

In ancient times, when Sinhala kings and monks perceived that the local practice of Buddhism was degenerating they sought to reinvigorate it with input from Buddhist centres abroad. Perhaps a parallel may be drawn between the needs of Sri Lanka’s religious institutions in the past and those of its legal institutions today. It is an undisputed fact that the country’s legal institutions are in a state of disarray and debasement. Under the circumstances, seeking help from outside to revive and strengthen them is not shameful.

Censorship of the arts is an insult to our intelligence. I honestly am astounded that our government could claim to carry out such censorship with intentions of making Sri Lanka a “better” place. How engineering social norms and trends, making judgement calls on propriety on *behalf* of people, and stifling alternative suggestions to the Sri Lankan way-of-life would result in a “better” Sri Lanka is absolutely beyond me. Sure, it would cause conformity simply by silencing the non-conformists, but that doesn’t make a country “better”. But therein lies the problem. Ours is a culture of imposition-by-the-majority — it has always been, and it will continue to be; the masses actually support censorship of the media. Skipping the cinema if they don’t agree with the movie’s content is not enough for them. They have to make sure that no one else sees the movie either! The other day I saw a photo-comment conversation on FB where a bunch of young men were livid with TV-Derana for having young women dress up in bikinis for the Miss Sri Lanka pageant. That they could switch off the TV if they didn’t like what they saw wasn’t a thought that occurred to them. That these girls have a choice to dress up as they wish wasn’t a thought that occurred to them either. Neither had the thought that there are others who may find their consternation ridiculous. All that seemed to have occurred to them was that “Girls in bikinis were un-Sri Lankan, the media should propound this perception of the “what’s ultimately Sri Lankan”, and TV-Derana should be banned, and the girls were plain ______. *Insert depletive suggesting promiscuity here.*

It really is a pity that people involved in the industry not only have nothing to say about the stifling of their own voices, but also support without any condition the same authorities that carry out such stifling. I assume, for them to be so indifferent to their own silencing, they must either have nothing at all to say, or nothing to say that would be worth the trouble of fighting for the freedom of its expression.

It would be beautiful day if someone could stand in front of a crowd and say “gay is good”, “war is bad” or “the government is racist”, and still be able to walk away unscathed.

On a note of personal opinion, I’ll just disagree with the writer’s claim of Handagama being “the man who can undoubtedly be called contemporary Sri Lanka’s best filmmaker”. He’s nowhere close.